Word: oslo
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...Situation Report: The Oslo Peace process has essentially collapsed, and Israel and the Palestinians now coexist in a state of low-intensity warfare, even if their leaders continue to discuss the hypotheticals of peace. The breakdown that began with Camp David may have set the peace process back years, and Israel appears poised to elect another right-wing government committed to hitting the rewind button while Palestinian public opinion hardens against compromises with Israel. Moreover, the moderate Arab regimes on which Washington has traditionally relied to provide political cover for Arafat are themselves under increasing domestic pressure to distance themselves...
...that sense, their very presence is an acknowledgment of the failure of the Oslo peace process and its mechanisms. Although Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat met U.S. envoy Dennis Ross in Morocco overnight, the idea that Israelis and Palestinians will rush to conclude a deal before President Clinton leaves office on January 20, and before Israel goes to the polls the following month, may be little more than wishful thinking...
Palestinian prosperity promotes peace; Palestinian poverty nurtures war. That logic was one of the foundations of the Oslo peace process, which is why one of its key authors on Tuesday raised the alarm over the state of the Palestinian economy after more than two months of the new intifada. And the World Bank, which seldom acts without a nod from the U.S., on Wednesday made an unprecedented donation of $12 million to the beleaguered Palestinian Authority for immediate job-creation programs...
...Norwegian U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen, who played a leading behind-the-scenes role in brokering the Oslo agreement, urged Israel on Tuesday to reopen its borders to the more than one fifth of the Palestinian work force who've been unable to reach their jobs in the Jewish state - and warned that the precipitous decline of the Palestinian economy was planting the seeds of a regional war. The Israeli blockade has quadrupled Palestinian unemployment, and the two months of the uprising have seen income losses to Palestinians totaling more than $500 million dollars. Indeed, the World Bank...
...even those of us without a purely personal interest in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict should be concerned about the escalating violence overseas; the fact that the United States sends more foreign aid to Israel than any other nation, the central negotiating role that President Clinton has attempted to assume since Oslo process, and the very real threat of a war which will require the mediation of, at the very least, the United Nations...